SCRIPTA JUDAICA CRACOVIENSIA Vol. 15 (2017) pp. 115–125 doi:10.4467/20843925SJ.17.008.8177 www.ejournals.eu/Scripta-Judaica-Cracoviensia BETWEEN HASKALAH AND ZIONISM. THE EXAMPLE OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF BRODY Dominika Rank (Ukrainian Catholic University) e-mail: [email protected] Key words: Brody, Haskalah, Zionism, Galicia, 19th century Abstract: In Galicia the propagation of Jewish diaspora nationalism in the early phase of this movement was welcomed by liberal Jewish organizations as just another step towards the ideals of Enlightenment. However, while Zionism gradually emerged as a separate political movement in Galicia, in Brody remained just a part of the cultural Enlightenment process of the Haskalah. In Lviv and other Galician towns, the same period was characterized by the intense development of Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish national ideologies—a markedly different situation compared to the pro-Austrian, centrist Brody, with its established Jewish economic elite with Austrian liberal supra-national identity. Owing to the dominant role of Jews in the economic, cultural and to some degree political life of the city, the local population did not encounter significant levels of anti- Semitism. This absence of a group that would symbolize the “alien, hostile other”—the absence of anti-Semitism—meant that the Zionism could not establish itself as a saviour and defender of the Jews in 19th century Brody. As such, Zionism was not regarded as a serious alternative to the Austrian liberal ideology espoused by the local population. The situation was changed with the establishment of universal suffrage in the Austrian Empire and the accompanying development of mass election campaigns contributed to the population’s politicization and the formation of a national identity in both Brody and throughout Galicia. To- gether with the use of modern political campaign methods and the activities of some members of the Jewish community, Zionism in Brody began to attract more active and conscious supporters. “The Metropolis of Jewish towns”, “a Galician Jerusalem”—though now merely a small provincial town in Ukraine, Brody has retained its previous glory in the col- lective memory of the Ashkenazi Jewry, thanks to its renown for Orthodox education (kloyz) and as a once flourishing center of Haskalah.1 At the end of 18th century Brody was one of the largest and most influential cities of Ashkenazi Jewry.2 It was unusu- 1 Descriptions of Brody as the “Metropolis of Jewish towns” were often used in the Jewish newspaper Ivri anokhi/Ha-Ivri (1865-1899). The term “Galician Jerusalem” has a more folkloric origin, but Austrian Emperor Franz II made one of the most famous comparisons of Brody with Jerusalem in 1774 during his visit to the city. The Emperor was so impressed by the quantity of Jews in Brody and by the warm and rich welcome organized by this community headed by Rabbi Leib Bernstein, that he remarked “Now I understand why I have the title Emperor of Jerusalem” (Emperor of Jerusalem was one of titles given to Austrian emper- ors). Honigsman 2011: 31. 2 The Kloyz of Brody (Klaus rabata d’kegila k’dosza) was one of the reasons for Brody’s fame as a Jewish educational center in Eastern Europe. It was built by Haim Landau in 1742. Wurm 1935: 91. 116 DDomimik okii ally homogenous – the percentage of Jews residing in Brody peaked at 88% and until World War I never dropped below 70%.3 This composition made Brody quite excep- tional among other Galician cities.4 In 1764, the town’s Jewish community was one of the biggest in the Polish Rzeczpospolita (Commonwealth), numbering 8,600 people out of a total population of about 10,000, and greater than in Krakow, where 4,150 Jews lived and which also had a total populace of 10,000 in 1791.5 In this context, the history of Jews of Brody more closely resembles the history of a dominant majority and not that of a minority, as it is usually presented in the historiography of the Jewish Diaspora. This dominance was true not only in quantitative terms: the wealth and influence of the Jew- ish economic elite, as well as its support of Haskalah and maskilim, shaped the town’s cultural and political life for almost one hundred years. The conventional beginning of these tendencies was the incorporation of Brody into the Austrian Empire in 1772 and the simultaneous advent of modernization—partly voluntary, partly forced—of the local population of the region. The quantitative and qualitative advantage of the Jewish population in Brody in the 19th and early 20th centuries was also the reason why it did not experience violent anti- Semitism. Without a doubt, anti-Semitism played a crucial role in the emergence of Zi- onism. However, the example of Brody happens to be an interesting historical anomaly, since a Jewish national movement arose in the town practically without the influence of anti-Semitism. From the 1870s, Brody increasingly began to lose its influence due to a variety of political and economic factors, causing a large part of the local economic elite to leave the town and emigrate, most of them to Vienna.6 But even economic decline and the emigration of its inhabitants, and in particular the economic elite, does not fully explain why Brody—which still had one of the largest Jewish communities in Galicia—did not have such a significant role in the develop- ment of the Zionist movement as it was earlier the case with the Haskalah. Certainly, the names of two Zionists from Brody are well known today—Nathan Michael Gelber and Dov Sadan—but even here some clarifications are necessary. Dov Sadan was born in 1902, meaning that he only became an active member of the Zionist movement when the Zionist movement in Galicia was gradually rejecting the ideas of promoting cultural, political and economic rights of the Jewish Diaspora. Instead, Zionism turned its atten- tion to the creation of Israel as an independent state. Therefore, Dov Sadan represented a newer generation in the Zionist movement, one which was better adapted to the chang- ing social and political context. On the other hand, Nathan Michael Gelber, born in 1891, turns out to be a more informative example of the complexity of the Jewish national 3 This numbers relate to the period from 1778-1910, when the population ranged from 10,887 to 18,055. Kuzmany 2011: 345. 4 For example, the percentage of Jews in Lviv did not exceed 30-33%. Melamed 1994: 237. The per- centage of Jews in smaller Galician towns was higher than in Lviv, for example in 1910 in Buchach it reached 63%, while in Kolomyia—50%, but compared to Brody these towns had a less significant cultural and eco- nomic impact than Brody at the time. Weinfeld 1912: 30-32. 5 Mahler 2006: 23. 6 Among the wealthy families that left Brody and migrated to Vienna was that of Amalia Nathanson, the future mother of Sigmund Freud. Another example of those who left was Adele von Mises (Landau), the mother of Ludwig von Mises, one of the theorists of the liberal economic system. Jörg 2007: 8. Between Haskalah and Zionism. The Example of the Jewish Community of Brody 117 movement’s development in the Galician context, and in particular in Brody. During his time in Brody (where he studied at and graduated from the gymnasium named af- ter Crown Prince Rudolf of Austro-Hungary), Gelber was a proponent of what Joshua Shanes has termed ‘Jewish diaspora nationalism’.7 This form of Zionism placed more emphasis on the needs and questions of Jewish communities in Europe than on the crea- tion of an independent Israel. One of the particularities of this type of Zionism in Galicia was its support for the Austrian government and, specifically, for the Austrian monarch. The private archive of Nathan Michael Gelber contains the draft of a speech he gave in 1916. The speech was dedicated to the celebration of Franz-Joseph I’s name day: There are many victims in our town from the events of 14 August 1914: we can still see traces of the damage to our synagogue, many people have left this place. And still, we are staying here today and we are happy that we can celebrate this outstanding holiday! We are under the protection of the regiment of Franz-Joseph and his army even during the time of the enemy’s offense. Due to Franz-Joseph, we Jews can enjoy our freedom during our time in this world. Our sons will transmit our gratefulness for our freedom... Thanks to him, everyone in our town is free and equal, there is no longer any caste that could oppress us! The military and officials act with us and not against us. However, still today there is no lack of voices among our opponents who argue that Jews are just fighting for their rights and do not care about filling the hand which gives them eve- rything. Our answer (to this insult) will be the heroism of our brothers in the fight against our enemy... .8 The Austrian patriotism of the Jewish Zionist Nathan Michael Gelber was not limited to appeals and proclamations; he also fought on the front together with hundreds of other Jewish volunteers.9 Both Nathan Michael Gelber and Dov Sadan are the results of the complex develop- ment of the Zionist movement in Brody and across Galicia. Theirs biographies and theirs achievements are well known, and it is precisely this fact that could influence all conclu- sions about the process of the formation of the Jewish national movement in the town.